


we have knocked at every door, and they open on nothing

by riverbed



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Absolute fluff, Anxiety, Chronic Illness, Cock Rings, Crossdressing, Domesticity, Fluff, Headaches & Migraines, Hospitals, Lingerie, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Sickfic, Surgery, handwriting kink, it's real now folks!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6863050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander had no frame of reference for John’s acute pain; all he knew was how he felt when it hit, shocked and angry and slighted, somehow, like the universe had it out for them.</p><p>He’d tried not to get ahead of himself, but he was excited; he’d seen John suffer through this for years, and he hoped - he <i>prayed,</i> he’d gone back to it in the past month or so - that he wouldn’t have to go through it from now on, that they could be lazy and happy together without this hanging like a dark cloud ready to pour acid rain over their heads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we have knocked at every door, and they open on nothing

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiii.  
> this was really born out of my love for a bookish john laurens.
> 
> john's a social worker and alexander writes for a magazine, or something. it's not that important.
> 
> enjoy.

When they had been dating in college it had just been headaches.  _ Just a headache, _ John would say, smile commiserating, as he bid the group goodbye before a party had really got underway;  _ Just a headache, _ he’d text when Alex would ask why he needed the notes for their shared International Responses to Human Needs class. At the end of the day Alex would go to John’s room and John would be lying there on the bed, room dark and silent and cool, and he’d sit on the bed and rub John’s back and sometimes, if the touch wasn’t too much, John’d ask him to touch him some more, and Alex would unbutton and spit and tug until John sighed with relief. Sometimes that was enough to relax the blood vessels enough that he could fall asleep; sometimes John would roll over and groan in frustration and Alex would take the hint. He hated doing it but he would leave, because his presence was hurting John, actually, physically hurting, and he hated hurting him even worse than he hated leaving him.

Now it was four years postgraduation and they had a condo together and a bed more than big enough for both of them and - oh, they were married, something Alex often forgot because it was so obvious. He fiddled with his ring, slid it back and forth around his finger, leaning in the doorway and watching John sleep. Nowadays, the headaches were much worse. Not just headaches. Now they were nausea and temporary blindness and being unable to stand unassisted and a stockpile of medication so extensive that it required his own dedicated medicine cabinet, and a smaller backup arsenal in the bedside table to hold him over when he couldn’t make it to the bathroom. There was soreness the next day, random body aches. The light sensitivity was bad but the sound sensitivity was worse. Alex couldn’t whisper in the same room without John writhing in pain, but he had to be there in case John needed help walking to throw up.

“You know, there have been times I’ve managed without you,” John said now, wincing at the loudness of his own voice, as Alex supported him down to the floor, preventing his knees from slamming onto the tile.

Alex smiled fondly. He didn’t say anything. John leaned over and retched, dry heaves mostly, because he hadn’t eaten but the hot tea Alex kept giving to him. It was weird how good he was at puking, if one could be good at such a thing; John threw up so regularly that he knew how to get it over with efficiently and with the least effort. Alex held his hair back and quickly removed his hand from it as he finished and rested, body slumped over and hands gripping white-knuckled to the sides of the toilet. His arms were shaking with the effort of holding himself up the amount required to not flop down into his own sick. Alex wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him gently against his chest. He fumbled with his free hand up on the counter for the mouthwash, poured into the cap blind with both hands in front of John. John accepted it, swished it around his mouth for a minute and spat in the toilet. Alex put the capped mouthwash on the floor and flushed and then got them settled against the bathroom wall, his legs splayed out so John could rest as fully on him as he needed to. He cuddled him soft, careful not to touch his head or his neck, fingers stroking lightly at his belly. John’s head lay back on his shoulder, breathing labored but calming steadily.

He was back asleep in minutes, and Alex couldn’t get at his phone in his back pocket to entertain himself, and he didn’t want to bother John with the screen anyway, so he rested against John tentatively, testing for his wakefulness, and dozed himself.

*

He woke up behind and slightly under John on the bathroom floor, nose in his hair. He sniffed in lieu of scratching his itchy nose, and John stirred, peaceful like he did when he was about to wake up  _ without _ a headache. Alex, thinking quickly, put a palm under his head to cushion it from the floor, and John turned into him, nuzzling into his neck and breathing soft upon it. Alex smiled, kissed the top of his head. “You feeling better?” he asked, very quiet.

John was slow to answer, probably thinking it over. “Not 100 per cent,” he said, but he cuddled into Alex and that was a big improvement over his tolerance for touch when he was on the downward slope, so Alex held him and let himself enjoy it. “Did you take your Imitrex?” he asked, suddenly realizing John had been more mobile than usual in the throes.

John shook his head and then groaned when he realized that had been a bad movement. He huffed harsh against Alex’s shoulder before he said, “Excedrin. It didn’t feel as bad.”

Alex caught himself before he scoffed, and he chided himself, because he didn’t know. He had no grasp of the breadth of John’s pain, and even when he channeled and focused the very last dregs of his empathy he could not imagine how he felt. Alex was not incredibly healthy, but his illnesses most often consisted of vague, general malaise - and there was his mental health, rickety at best, but he was well taken care of, he had routines and rituals and he had John, who reassured him and helped him rationalize when he felt out of control. He had no frame of reference for John’s acute pain; all he knew was how he felt when it hit, shocked and angry and slighted, somehow, like the universe had it out for them, and then selfish when he realized he was thinking about himself like it was some sort of team effort to get through this. It was John, a feat accomplished time and time again through sheer strength and determination. John said he helped but Alex knew from the tight line his lips made when Alex did something that didn’t help at all that him being there was another complication, another variable John had to consider and keep an eye on while recovering. But he felt even more useless leaving him alone, and John being sick conjured up an instinct he had forgotten about: this frantic, maternal impulse, this need to take care, to heal. It was a direct line to how he’d felt when his mother fell ill, and he’d failed to heal her so thoroughly that he’d done so himself. He was making up for lost time, he knew, and he felt kind of bad about that, projecting in this way onto John. But John really did appreciate his efforts, at least when he wasn’t actively sick; he could always tell when John wasn’t being truthful, and his thanks afterwards were always genuine. So Alex continually weighed his growing expertise, the risk of staying versus the risk of going, and did the best he could. John seemed to humor him fine.

He pressed his lips into John’s hair again and shifted his body a little. “Sorry,” John said, probably realizing his weight had made Alex’s arm fall asleep, but he didn’t move. Alex shook his head against him, smiling.

“You’re fine,” he said gently. John fell back asleep. Alex just stared at the woodgrain of the undersink cupboards and thought.

*

John was so pretty when he begged, John made little  _ ah-ah _ noises and whimpered and arched and shut his eyes in perfect submissive acceptance as Alex gasped his way through his orgasm, landing hot ropes of come on John’s cheek. Alex turned and lay atop him, finishing him off with his mouth, and they both lay sated and warm for a while, gradually wrapping around each other until their legs were entwined and Alex’s head was on John’s chest.

“Have you looked at other stuff?” Alex said, trailing his hands along the smooth plane of John’s torso.

“What?” John asked, getting his reading glasses and his current book - Carolyn Dever, an endeavor more for fun than for actual research - from the table and adjusting to hoist Alex up closer to him.

“Sorry. Have you thought about trying something other than meds.” Alex separated them for long enough to throw a leg over John and straddle him. John eyed him suspiciously over his glasses, slipped down his nose. Alex touched the bridge of it, trailed his finger up to his forehead.

“Like what,” John said. Deadpan, but the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He thought Alex was being funny. Alex scowled. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was looking at things online the other day. They have surgeries…”

Now it was John’s turn to scowl. Alex traced with his thumb the lines in his forehead made by the furrow of his brow. “Alex,” he said, very seriously. “You know I have shit about hospitals.” John looked at him for a moment, face setting harder with doubt.  _ "You _ have shit about hospitals.”

Alex put his hands up, palms out, in acknowledgement. “I know!” he said. “But a lot of these are noninvasive.” He returned his hands to John’s face, laid two fingers on each temple. “They pinpoint the nerves that hurt you and they just release them, HD cameras, tiny incisions.” He swirled his fingertips down to John’s lips. “I just want you better,” he said, quiet, sad. “I don’t want your life impeded like this.” He looked away from John, feeling cursed selfish tears well in his eyes, and John set his book down next to them, cupped the back of Alex’s head and pulled him down to him.

“I know,” John shushed him, “I know, Alex, I know.”

Before they’d gotten married, John had tried to deny that his life was affected by his headaches. He’d push himself, go out and have to turn in early, go to work and come home before lunch. When they’d moved in together Alex had observed him doing this and they’d had fight after fight about it, Alex picking John up from work and yelling at him in the car, unable to control his temper even though he knew it made it worse. John would cry, unable to do much else, unable to respond, the pain and frustration and anger so overwhelming that all he could do was break down. He remembered John not letting him help him into the house, moving slow on shaking legs and sometimes not making it further than the couch.

Alex would shut himself in their room and weep himself, apologizing to John when he wasn’t there to hear it. He’d taken to praying, for a while, asking God to take John’s pain away, give it to him instead, something, anything. John with a headache was so at odds with who he was, a stark and jarring difference that Alex had been so badly-equipped to handle.

He knew he was being selfish, as usual, crying quietly now into John’s chest and trying to push something on him he didn’t want. John stroked his hair and Alex thought about how nicely they fit together, Alex slightly smaller, hips aligned just right, bodies slotting perfectly against each other so naturally from day one.

“We’ll look into it,” John told him finally, and Alex sighed in relief even though John’s tone was more one of defeat than conviction.

*

He kept pushing it until finally John slammed a folder down on the table one Friday morning before leaving for work, mock-exasperated. He kissed Alex on the cheek in goodbye as he gathered his keys and Alex wolfed down the rest of his cornflakes before flipping through the folder - clinic brochures, printouts of abstracts and carefully highlighted clippings from scientific journals, organized impeccably and annotated in John’s swooping cursive. He smiled wistfully to himself - John was so careful, so measured. Every decision he made was weighed painstakingly and Alex loved that about him, he loved that it always made him consider his own rashness.

He took the folder over to the couch, did some reading. The surgeries that seemed to match John’s needs the closest had what he had calculated from across various studies as a rough 60% success rate, “success,” as John defined helpfully in the margins, meaning total lack of migraines going forward. They seemed to be slightly more effective in the cases of patients who had the aura John had, the uneasy way he felt in the morning that told him it would be a headache day. Side effects were relatively mild, outpatient was most common, recovery consisted of a few weeks of rest. John had googled doctors from local clinics as well as ones in Virginia and Jersey, and seemed to have come to a resoundingly positive conclusion on two of them - one in Baltimore and one at JFK medical center -  _ longer trip, _ John had scribbled,  _ but might be worth a consultation. _

John had printed out their insurance details, scrawling his usual frustrations with working for the state. Alex left the folder on the coffee table, went to his home office and answered some emails, plodded away at his current assignment. He would have to go into the office later, next week, to figure out family leave if they were going to do this. Around lunchtime he opened the fridge, the state of which he discovered was absolutely dismal, and after improvising a grilled cheese and tomato soup took the Subaru to the grocery store. He didn’t hear from John (or his coworkers - Angelica and Lafayette in particular were both extremely sharp, and would text him at the first sign of John’s head bothering him) all day, so as 5 o’clock rolled closer he figured he was good to go. They’d been in a dry spell, both so busy, and it was the weekend, no responsibilities to wake up to, and he was happy, he wanted John in the way that bubbled under the surface constantly, in the same way he’d wanted him on their wedding night, frenzied with a passion that had only grown over time. He took a long, scalding shower, wrapped himself in a big fluffy towel and slathered himself in lotion with a light, sweet fragrance.

In the bedroom, squeezing his hair out into the towel, he debated briefly before pulling on his prettiest underthings, black satin and soft cotton lace, sheer stay-ups he snapped the elastic of around his thighs a couple times to get them sat just right. He laid out on the bed, focusing on his breathing, and tried to look peaceful and inviting. John came in, John threw his keys in the bowl with a  _ clang _ and his bag down in the entryway with a  _ thump _ and he whistled when he opened the fridge and found his favorite beer and Alex smiled. John’s footsteps down the hall, John’s hand twisting the door handle and then John’s eyes on him, looking him up and down, hungrily taking in his frame.

“Christ, Alex,” he groaned, setting his bottle down on the dresser and unbuttoning his shirt. Alex sat up, smirked. He was getting a little hard just watching the ripple of John’s abs as he twisted to stretch his back; Alex purred to let him know he appreciated it and lay back against the pillows, spread his legs in an enticing sprawl. John growled at him and came to kneel on the bed between them. He ran his hands over his thighs where the stockings ended and leaned down to kiss him, exploratory and sweet.

“What’s gotten into you?” John asked, pulling away for a moment. He rifled blindly through the drawer of the table on Alex’s side of the bed. “I haven’t seen these” - he traced over the waistband of the panties - “in a while.”

Alex paid him a smirk. “I’m just really turned on by you showing an active interest in taking care of yourself.” John collapsed in laughter, forehead against Alex’s. He pulled his hand from the drawer with the lube and a cock ring. Alex looked at them and shivered. “You’re really gonna deny me?” he whined, trailing his hands from John’s waist up to his chest, thumbing over his nipples with the exact amount of friction he knew him to like best. John moaned and shook his head, squirting some lube into his hand.

“Not for you, babe. For me.” He let Alexander get at his buttons and stroked himself till he was hard, slipping the stretchy ring down to his base once he was done. “You put on those clothes, you should know what you’re getting yourself into.” He leaned back down to kiss Alex’s neck. “I’m going to  _ ruin _ you,” he promised, a low growl against his ear, and then he bit the lobe, and Alex was gone.

The first one was nice, it felt more like relief than anything else. John worked it out of him through the panties and told Alex how messy he was, how filthy-dirty, still pawing at his cock through the wet fabric. The orgasm loosened his muscles and he sighed so beautifully, John said, how was anybody meant to resist taking him apart again and again? Alex mewled and arched when John bit his nipple, when he nipped his way down his chest to mouth at the waistband of his underwear, pulling it down below his balls with his teeth, pushing them up so John could get his mouth on them and make Alexander cry out. Ultrasensitive, he grit his teeth and buried his hands in John’s hair, pulling it free from his ponytail and flipping it around. John hummed and added his hand to stroke him through another orgasm, this one rougher, a more steep climb and a much harsher descent. He came down crashing, panting and breathless, and John snickered at him, gave him a little break as he palmed at his own dick. Alex begged him to fuck him and John pulled the panties down to his ankles. Alex kicked them off and wrapped his legs around John’s waist, pulling them flush, and John groaned, rubbing his cock against Alex’s ass where they were pressed together.

Alex shifted up with the leverage of his legs, forcing John down to take his face in his hands and kiss him hard, and the angle changed to let him rut against John, hard and solid against him, and Alex’s cock jumped and he whined but kept rolling his hips, wanting the grit, wanting the challenge. He dared John with his body and his kiss, knowing John would be unable to resist. John’s head slipped into him, and Alexander let out a low moan at the breach; John shook himself, panting, and reached between them to open Alex up, pressing his fingers expertly against his prostate, and Alex was coming again before John even got around to sinking his cock fully into him, eyes still rolling back even as John bottomed out. It felt like sparks igniting into fire, vaguely registering John slamming home rhythmic and hard, slaps of his hips against Alex’s ass echoing through the room below their moans. Alexander cried out and laid there, useless and heavy, feeling the excruciating drag of John against the spot inside him that opened further with each thrust.

John fucked him, and fucked him, and fucked him, and Alex soon lost count of how many times he’d come - they all blended together, at this point, one long earth-shattering orgasm that rendered him speechless and floating. John decided he’d had enough at some point, for some completely mysterious reason, or maybe John had just had enough himself, and Alex distantly felt the warmth of him filling him up, dripping out as John pulled back and brought his lips down to Alexander’s stomach and kissed there where he’d released. Alex shivered and his spent cock jumped and tried but he couldn’t take it. His stockings were still on, one bunched down around the knee. John kissed him there and unraveled them, and he lay down next to Alex, bringing him into his arms and getting them comfily burrowed into the covers.

There was quiet for a long while, and then John said, “Do you ever wonder if we were meant to be together?”

Alex spluttered, panicking. “What? John, I -”

John’s eyes widened. “No!” he exclaimed. He propped himself up on his elbow and took Alex’s hand and looked him very seriously in the eye. “I just mean - I’m sorry. I just mean the whole soulmates thing. Do you think it was fate or something? Because I think a lot of who I am comes from you.”

Alex counted down from ten in his head, calming the residual anxiety. “I…” He wasn’t sure. He had never considered it. He never really thought about it, he just knew that he and John fit so nicely, like nothing he could have ever expected, ever dreamed. They’d planned proposals for the same weekend, and both of them were so bad at keeping secrets that they’d ended up getting engaged the Friday immediately before. They’d still enlisted Lafayette to photograph the moment John proposed to Alex - he was the more composed one, they’d agreed, the one who would definitely plan out a sweet gesture on a chilly October evening after a candlelit dinner. Gilbert had gotten an especially good shot of John squeezing Alex’s face as he kissed him, smile evident on Alex’s lips even as they were pressed to John’s, and it always made him melt; it always reminded him of how happy John made him, how kind and wonderful he was. Nothing about their relationship required great thought; it was simple, easy. Alex had never had anything easy, besides this. He was as intoxicated by it as he had been when they’d met, when John had first leveled those deep eyes at him, when he’d first laughed openly at one of his stupid puns.

John brushed the hair back from his forehead, studied him. “I don’t mean we have to define it. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about.” He tightened his other hand around Alex’s, and Alex felt his ring press against him. “You taught me how to be goofy and you see the good in everything. Without you I think I’d be an insufferable pessimist.” John scoffed, raked his hand through his own hair and banded it one-handed with the spare elastic around his wrist. He still held onto Alex with his other hand.

“I love you,” Alex said. It wasn’t really an answer, it seemed like placating, but it seemed to appease John, who sighed happily and brought Alex’s hand to his face, kissed his knuckles in turn. He paid special attention to his ring, kissed it two times.

“I love you, Alex,” he said softly, rumbling against his knuckles, and they fell asleep together, sticky and sweaty and smiling and peaceful.

*

The clinic was brightly lit and cheerful, and the doctor, a tiny woman with dark hair and a sweet, tight-lipped smile, didn’t blink when Alex swung John’s hand between them as she led them back to her office. She did some preliminary tests, asked John about his headache triggers, the frequency, the breadth of his symptoms. She talked them through the nitty-gritty of the surgery, and addressed with great sobriety the possible complications. She gave them a timeline and reassured them on the insurance, saying she’d dealt with more difficult cases. She said she thought it had a good chance of helping him, but required that they go home and give it at least a week before making a decision. She gave them each her business cards, which included numbers to reach her at both her private practice and the hospital she did on-call rounds at, and said to call with any questions, no matter how curious.

This all seemed to reassure John - he liked having his options open. He watched out the window as Alexander drove, pulling into the drive-through of their favorite burger stand and ordering the worst things on the menu. They shared curly fries, John munching absently on his cheeseburger. Alex dipped a strip of bacon in the ranch for the fries and asked what he was thinking.

John hummed and tapped his leg before answering. “I think it might be worth a try. Worst outcome is the migraines just continue, right?”

Alex nodded, once. “Right.”

“We’ll give it the week, but I like it. I like her.” Alex grinned. He grabbed John’s hand in his lap and held it while he drove the rest of the way home.

“Yeah. Me too.”

*

When the week was up John called the clinic and said he wanted to schedule a surgery. The doctor had an opening at the hospital the following Monday. Six days. Alex got the insurance figured out in a hurry and they confirmed the appointment, and there were two headache days while they waited.

“I think it’s the stress,” John said, the day after the second one. It had been bad - he’d wailed and sobbed and writhed, unable to express the pain, until his muscle relaxant knocked him out. Alex had watched him sleep, though he didn’t normally do that, studying the hard set of his face and imagining what John would look like without it. The appointment was in two days. He’d tried not to get ahead of himself, but he was excited; he’d seen John suffer through this for years, and he hoped - he  _ prayed _ , he’d gone back to it in the past month or so - that he wouldn’t have to go through it from now on, that they could be lazy and happy together without this hanging like a dark cloud ready to pour acid rain over their heads. Their idyllic little marriage would be just like an old romantic novel, full of clever in-jokes and boring summer days spent on the lawn. Alex bounced when he thought about it, though he was apprehensive; he didn’t want to get attached to John without his headaches if this didn’t work. He didn’t want this to set them back even further.

Alex laid out everything they’d need and they turned in early the night before the surgery; they had to be at the hospital at five. John murmured that he loved him under his breath as he settled down in bed, hand a steady weight on on Alex’s chest, and Alex grinned from ear to ear.

*

The benefit of such an early appointment was beating rush hour. They ended up checking in half an hour early, and Alex got an iced coffee in a glass bottle from the vending machine, yawning as he came to sit back down beside John. John glared at him as he sipped, having had to fast for the morning.

“Sorry,” he said, sheepishly screwing the cap back on and tossing it in his bag, which he threw under the waiting-room chair. John leaned over and laid his head on Alex’s shoulder, sighing. It smelled in here unmistakably like hospital, sanitizer layered with the receptionist’s perfume. The ward wasn’t exactly bustling; it was quiet, sort of eerie if the sunrise hadn’t been climbing over the hills straight out the window. Alex tipped his head down to ask John how he was feeling, and John grumbled something about being sleepy. Alex smiled, carding his fingers through his hair and untangling a couple curls from one another at the back.

Finally a nurse came out and called his name, and John gave Alex a peck on the lips and told him everything would be all right before following her back. Alex sat there, sort of stunned, for a while, before he got up and paced the room, counting the footsteps it took to get from one corner to the other. He counted the chairs, rearranged the toys in the little box by the TV so they were neatly organized, found the remote and tuned to the news but that made him more anxious so he tuned to House Hunters International and spent a little while getting righteously mad at the pickiness of people rich enough to actually consider buying an island. Anger distracted him, relaxed him in a backwards way. He didn’t have to think about John zonked out on anesthetic if he was angry. He texted back and forth with Angelica, who said the office wished him the best and was going to throw him a party when he came back to work. Alex almost responded by saying to mind his headaches and not be too loud, and he smiled when he caught himself. He let his imagination run wild, a little; they’d have more frequent sex, John would be uninhibited and relaxed and he’d be able to go to the beach in the sun and throw holiday parties without worrying they’d have to cancel because of a headache, and they wouldn’t have every corner stuffed with medications, and Alex could touch him and hug him and comfort him when he wasn’t feeling well because his bouts of not feeling well would be  _ normal _ , they wouldn’t make him want to cry and curse and scream because nothing was fair.

“Alex Hamilton?” He opened his eyes to see the same nurse from before, smiling sweet and calm. Alex let out a breath. “You can come see your husband, if you want. He’s just resting a bit and then you can take him home. Everything went great.”

Alex talked a thousand miles per hour as she led him to John’s room, asking how he could be most helpful during John’s recovery, what to avoid, if there was anything he should know. Finally, as they reached the threshold to John’s room, he got to the question that scared him the most.

“How do we know if it’s worked?” He scuffed his foot against the metal bar over the floor in the doorway, hearing the steel scrape under his shoe.

“You just have to wait, unfortunately. You know this, but migraines - they have their own schedule. He could eventually get one, and it might be better, but it might be the same. You can try again, it’s possible we missed a trigger nerve, but usually people elect to just treat the symptoms the same way they always have, skip a second surgery.” Alex sighed, peeked around the door frame at John, who was done up with the usual hospital kit, EKG and EEG nodes stuck to his chest and forehead and neck, soft beeps from the machines monitoring him. “If you want my honest opinion, though,” the nurse said, and Alex snapped his head around to look at her - she was pretty, plump and blonde, with wide, sympathetic green eyes - “I think John has a good chance.” She smiled, nodded toward the room. “I’ll let you be with him. Page us if you guys need anything.”

The corridor was pretty much abandoned and her footfalls faded as Alex stood in the doorway and stared into the room. It was weird to see John like this - he really did hate hospitals, and the way John looked now, not unlike the way his mother had, when - he shook his head to physically rid himself of the thought. This was a  _ good _ thing; this was a beginning, not an end. Alex inched his way into the room on one mustered breath, pulled a plastic chair from the wall by the window and looked John up and down. His arms were above the cotton blanket that covered him, and Alex took his hands in his, circling his thumbs in his palms.

He sat like that for a while, thinking of work, until John made a noise, sniffled and cleared his throat and blinked himself awake. He found Alex just a moment later, looked up his arms from where he had joined their hands to his face. “Hey,” he said, and his smile reminded Alex of the smile he’d given him after their first night together, made his heart speed up and pound against his chest.

“Hey,” Alex echoed quietly, squeezing John’s hands.

John shifted in the bed, sitting up just a little. He motioned Alex to the dresser in the corner, on top of which his day clothes were folded neatly with a little plastic bag on top of them. “Hey, get my ring,” he said, and Alex hopped up to obey his command without really processing what it was - he brought the Ziploc over and plopped back down, shook the bag to settle the contents - just John’s pocket change, his locket with his sisters in it, his watch, besides - and find the cool circle of platinum, which he plucked out carefully, holding it up in the midmorning light to make sure it hadn’t been scratched up. The sunlight caught the inscription, script impeccable, akin to John’s own practiced, doctoral scrawl.

He took John’s hand back in his own and slid the ring on him.  _ “How little reality means,” _ he said softly, and John shut his eyes and smiled, his dimples deep in his cheeks, as Alex leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead. Alex hummed, content, and even as the hospital became steadily busier and more hospital-like he found himself calm, feeling the rise and fall of John’s chest as he drifted in and out of napping.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this!  
> i love comments.
> 
> john and alex's wedding band inscriptions, along with the title of this fic, are from proust's _in search of lost time._ the full context of the title is: “But sometimes illumination comes to our rescue at the very moment when all seems lost; we have knocked at every door and they open on nothing until, at last, we stumble unconsciously against the only one through which we can enter the kingdom we have sought in vain a hundred years - and it opens.”  
>  :') 
> 
> nerve-release surgeries are actually a treatment option for chronic migraines, but they're contested; i'm not making a medical statement with this. lol.


End file.
